1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image-searching system such as an image data filing system, for recording, searching for, and processing image data.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, image data filing systems have been put to practical use. Each of these systems reads image data items from a number of documents by scanning the documents by means of a scanner, records the data items on an optical disk, searches for a desired item of the image data recorded on the disk, reproduces the desired image data item from the disk, and displays the reproduced data item by means of, for example, a CRT display or prints it by means of a printer.
With the system it is possible to perform a high-speed page-flipping and a high-speed file-flipping. In other words, the CRT display displays the pages of image data contained in each file, and also the first pages of files, one after another at high speed.
Neither the page-flipping nor the file-flipping can be started at once when the CRT display displays an image searched for and reproduced from the optical disk. To initiate the page- or file-flipping, the operator needs to perform a complex keyboard operation, spending much time.
More specifically, the operator must operate the keyboard, thereby displaying a list of files on the screen of the CRT display, again operate the keyboard, thereby designating a desired file or a desired page, further operate the keyboard, thus selecting the page- or file-flipping mode, and operate the keyboard for the fourth time, thereby designating the range of search.
In view of this, the conventional filing system has a low efficiency.